We were compelled at the Happy Herald to feature the hotly anticipated film adaptation of the bestselling book, Fifty Shades of Grey. With its overwhelming popularity and the ensuing hype that’s been growing daily, we couldn’t resist. Did you know that after its premiere on July 24, 2014, the first trailer for the film became the most viewed trailer of 2014 after it gained over 100 million views in just over a week? Fifty Shades of Grey is a global phenomenon and since its release, the trilogy has been translated into 51 languages worldwide and sold more than 100 million copies in e-book and print - making it one of the biggest and fastest-selling book series ever.
The subject matter is highly controversial and there is something both familiar and forbidden in the story. Fifty Shades of Grey is probably unlike any other film seen on the silver screen. It features erotica through pleasure and pain in the form of bondage and discipline, dominance and submission and sadism and masochism, aka BDSM.
This article will not venture any further into the exploits of the genre - that will be your decision. If you go to the movie or read the trilogy, you’re on your own. From what I’ve heard though, this is a tale that will obsess you, possess you, and stay with you forever.
When Anastasia Steele, a literature student, goes to interview the wealthy Christian Grey, as a favor to her roommate Kate Kavanagh, she encounters a beautiful, brilliant and intimidating man. The innocent and naive Ana started to realize she wants him, despite his mysterious reserve and she finds herself desperate to get close to him. Christian Grey admits he wants her too, but on his own terms.
Fifty Shades of Grey ultimately illustrates the willingness of two people to go beyond their comfort zone in regard to their desire to explore the realm of both sexual as well as emotional intimacy. While Anastasia focuses on emotional honesty, Christian beckons Anastasia to sexual delights that were previously unimaginable to her.
Let’s face it, life is rather mundane. 75% of our daily activities are maintenance. We have to cook, eat, shop, work, clean, shower, sleep… where’s the fun in that? I believe many of us desire to be whisked away from our humdrum lives and into a world of passion and ecstasy.
We want to be taken away, into fantasy and into the world of luxury, leisure, and of course, pleasure!
Dakota Johnson (the daughter of Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson) stars as Anastasia. She will be put right in the spotlight’s glare - a place she’s not sure she’s prepared for. “I think about my dwindling anonymity,” she said in Vogue‘s February issue. “And that’s really scary because a very large part of me would be perfectly happy living on a ranch in Colorado and having babies and chickens and horses, which I will do anyway.”
Stepping into the role of Christian Grey is Jamie Dornan who shared his lack of affection for celebrity and the infamous photographers that follow him. “It’s a strange environment, being hounded. It’s really hideous,” Dornan recently told the London Evening Standard. Dornan is also sensitive to the critics and thinks people should focus on the fact that Fifty Shades of Grey is telling a love story. “The love story is more important than the BDSM aspect,” he said. “I mean, we are going to tell a love story, you know, it can’t just be what happens in the Red Room, that’s not a film. There’s so much more going on than that.”
There is a teaching that suggests the word intimacy means Into Me See. When we allow someone to enter into our most private and vulnerable places, we are letting them see into who we truly are and what makes us tick. Fifty Shades of Grey, as Dorman acknowledges, is a love story of emotional transparency. Anastasia’s insistence that they each reveal their innermost selves to each other on an ongoing basis is the foundation of their relationship. They stretched each other into worlds that they both feared and longed for.
Not unlike the heroine in her hotly anticipated upcoming movie, director Sam Taylor-Johnson shares about her whirlwind experience with Fifty Shades of Grey.
"I´m literally going out of my mind," she tells Red for its March issue. "I have seen this film over a thousand times and the nuances within the tiniest shift, look, blink of an eye can make all the difference and flip it into the wrong territory. It´s like walking a knife edge."
Much like Anastasia Steele´s tangle with the cunning Christian Grey, Taylor- Johnson, 47, says she´s been breathless ever since she signed on for the project.
"The moment I stepped out of the meeting, I stepped onto one of those bullet trains. The doors closed and I couldn´t get off. The speed, the velocity, was unbelievable. I need to get off and breathe and think about something else," she says.
With 50 Shades of Grey set to hit theaters on February 13th, Taylor-Johnson can finally start to think about taking some time off to be with her family.
As we enter the month of February, punctuated right in the middle by Valentine’s Day, we each have a choice about what we read, what we see in the theaters, what we see in ourselves, in each other and in our relationships. Adding a little spice to our lives may be a good thing… what do you think?
A writer, Huffington Post blogger, radio talk show host and motivational speaker. Listen to Liz’s radio show and inspiring celebrity interviews at SterlingSpin.com